Hurricane Mitch may just be too mighty to overcome

For all intents and purposes, England's Ashes campaign is over. Yes, only two matches have gone with three to go and so England could still win or draw the series and retain the urn. But, having lost in Brisbane and Adelaide mainly because of the sweltering pace of Mitchell Johnson, the battlefield now moves to Perth, consistently the most fast-bowler friendly surface in the world.

Unless Johnson keels over from an injury or some ailment, England has almost no chance of winning there. As one tweet from Freddie Wilde put it, "Going 2-0 down to Australia due to pace and bounce before Perth is like losing to Harry Potter at football before playing him at Quidditch." Or, if I may, it is like falling behind Jamaica in the 4x100 metre relay at the Olympics before they hand the baton to Usain Bolt.

For sure, Cook and his now ragged brigade have to (or at least pretend to) believe otherwise. Addressing his side's ability to retain the Ashes after the Adelaide disaster, the England captain offered this to the media: "It's certainly not impossible. A lot of people will probably give us no chance. But if we don't believe that in our dressing room, if we believe the urn has gone, then it might have well has gone."

Cook is right. The Ashes has not yet been wrested from England's rapidly slipping grasp. The Australians have not yet won the series. It is, however, the third leg of the relay, Usain Bolt is about to receive the baton ahead of the competition, and unless something calamitous occurs he will be sprinting to a clear and electrifying victory.

Australia's relentless march to retrieve the urn is now so ominous that quite a number of pundits and past players, not all of them Australian, have started to predict that the visitors will be whitewashed. This is a dramatic turnaround from the prognostications that obtained before the battle was joined in Brisbane, when not even the staunchest Australian supporter would dare predict that England would be totally overpowered in the first two games.

Naturally, after being swamped so badly in both matches the English players and coaches are searching for answers. Acknowledging to the press that his team has been outplayed, Cook pressed his comrades to look into their "inner souls" to find the resolve to defend cricket's most famed prize.

The captain's exhortation may or may not make a difference. What the visitors really need, however, is to find a way to combat Mitchell Johnson in particular, and Australia's bowling attack in general. Pace bowling, without a doubt, is the most devastating force in cricket. It was pace bowling, brutal and uncompromising, that limited Bradman to a measly -- by his standards -- 56 runs per innings average during the bodyline series. The West Indies had an exciting array of batsmen in the seventies and eighties, but it was pace bowling, both cruel and cunning, that fuelled their reign in world cricket for nearly two decades.

Often clocking in excess of 90 mph, Johnson's bowling in the first two tests of this series has been the sharpest seen in a long time. In Brisbane, on a quite sprightly surface, it was mostly the short and spitting delivery that that he used to great effect.

On Adelaide's more docile surface, it was the fuller and straighter delivery that did most of the damage. Of his seven wickets in the first innings five were out bowled or LBW. His delivery that shifted Cook's off-stump in the first innings was so lethal that former West Indies player, Ian Bishop, himself properly versed in the vocation of electric fast bowling, insisted that touching the delivery was somewhat beyond Cook's capabilities. The England captain, remember, is among the game's most adhesive batsmen.

As dark as it may seem for the tourists, there are a few morsels of hope to which they can hold on. Were it not for a poor fielding display they might have dismissed Australia for a substantially smaller total in the first innings in Brisbane. An improved performance in the field should be within England's capabilities and could make a considerable difference during the rest of the series.

Another grain of optimism may also be found in the fact that England's entire batting unit has hinted at some sort of form at some point during the two games. Joe Root, for example, in both games, has shown a willingness and an ability to stand up to whatever Johnson hurls at him. Ian Bell is one of the most attractive batsmen in the game and his undefeated 72 in the first innings in Adelaide was an exquisite display. Michael Carberry looked solid in both games and it could be considered unfortunate that the opener was caught in both innings after connecting properly with pull shots. He should strive for better execution in the remaining tests.

All of England's mainline batsmen, in fact, got starts in at least one innings, and the number of them who fell hooking and in other needless ways indicate that more application will yield better results.

Alastair Cook is now faced with one of the most difficult tasks of his impressive career: how to guide his stumbling side back into Ashes contention. He will not accept this - and he shouldn't - but whatever he does might still not bear much fruit. Hurricane Mitch may just be too mighty to overcome.

Cricket Australia High performance director, Pat Howard has candidly admitted that he took a back-seat and allowed Darren Lehmann, the coach of the Australian team to implement his ideas during the recently concluded Ashes series.